Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m not the first journalist to accuse Battlefield 6 of failing to read the room. The new Battlefield’s single player story explores a near-future in which NATO has collapsed, a dastardly private military corporation has filled the power vacuum, and the USA’s somehow-outgunned military must fight to reunite old allies under the Stars and Stripes. The campaign includes an invasion of New York, with street battles waged against the balaclava-huffing scoundrels of “Pax Armata” in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge. Many valiant helicopters lay down their lives in the process, and the soul of Bob Dylan is flown from every flagpole.

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Horror game Vile: Exhumed, which sees you delving into a 90s computer to uncover a man’s obsession with an adult film actress, has launched as a free download after being “wrongly banned” from Steam over sexual content, according to developer Cara Cadaver of Final Girl Games.

Initially released via Itch.io (where that version remains live), the game was set to to debut on Steam on July 22, but had its page on Valve’s platform pulled down. Cadaver and publisher DreadXP say “sexual content with depictions of real people” was the reasoning given for this by Valve, despit the game featuring “no uncensored nudity, no depictions of sex acts, and no pornography”.

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If you’re planning to hop into Battlefield 6‘s open beta later this week, you might have to do some digging around in your PC’s settings in order to get in. EA have elected to make enabling secure boot on your hardware mandatory, as part of an effort to limit cheating.

It’s not that surprising a move, given the publishers opted to make it a hard requirement for Battlefield 2042 earlier this year. EA’s not alone either, with the likes of Riot having already done the same with fellow online shooter Valorant. You see, the real war isn’t about nations, resources, or petty rulers’ personal grievances – it’s to ensure you don’t get sniped by a Terminator with permanent x-ray vision or auto-aim.

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Got three (or maybe four) monitors and want to condense things into one, suitably massive canvas for your work or the best ultrawide games? We might just have the deal for you.

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Helldivers 2‘s warp pack sounded like great fun as soon as it was announced as part of last month’s Control Group warbond, and it’s warped its way into many players’ hearts. This is thanks in part to some cool tricks and glitches you can use it to pull off, with the game’s latest patch having seen Arrowhead opt to outlaw the cheekiest of these.

You see, for the uninitiated, each mission in the shooter kicks off with you descending onto a planet and therefore ends with you being extracted via shuttle back up to your ship. It’s the circle of Helldiver life and it moves us all. Well aside from folks who’d taken to using a well-timed warp to escape their ride home as it took off.

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A stickfellow in a top hat’s just burst through a twentieth story window, taking a fatal tumble down the corporate ladder, and all because I lobbed a parcel at him. This kind of thing happens all the time in Stick It to the Stickman, the roguelite beat ’em up that Anger Foot devs Free Lives are set to release in early access form later this month.

It’s glorious enough to forgive any frustration you might have been left with when publishers Devolver Digital announced late last year that the corporate slapfest had been delayed into 2025.

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I’d love to say that Bloodgrounds plunged me into a crimson mist, but in practice, this arena tactics RPG with town-building feels as cosy as a pair of soft leather socci on a frosty Saturnalia. The setup: you are a gladiator from a Roman-themed fantasy world, who has recently won his freedom in the arena. How is he celebrating his freedom? By becoming a gladiator manager himself, as he continues his quest for vengeance upon the Emperor who slaughtered his father.

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The Stop Destroying Videogames citizens’ initiative, the petition asking EU lawmakers to look into the issue of publishers rendering online games unplayable when official support runs its course, hit its deadline at the end of last month looking like it’d amassed more than enough signatures. With that phase over, the Stop Killing Games campaign that’s vocally supported efforts like this is left to await the outcomes, whatever they might be.

That’s given YouTuber Ross Scott, who’s become the loudest voice publicising this worldwide push for action on consumer rights when it comes to these sorts of server shutdowns, a chance to take stock of how things have gone to this point. He’s keen to take a break, but will first have to see how things pan out with the multiple irons Stop Killing Games and their adjacent groups have in the fire.

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Battlefield 6‘s open beta kicks off later this week, and EA have now painted a picture of what you can expect maps/modes-wise, as well as in terms of the changes the devs have made based on Battlefield Labs playtest feedback.

Plus, there’s a new trailer that features yet more folks in camo running about amid booms. I’m glad to report that no helicopters, at least at a glance, look to have been harmed in the run up to this one.

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Imagine Tetris but played in a bottomless ocean shaft, with linked tetronimoes serving to continue your journey down that shaft, providing you keep earning enough points to play them. This is Podvodsk, a free game jam experiment from Loop Hero developers Four Quarters.

Not played Tetris? 1) you bloody liar, and 2) let me frame this differently, then. The idea here is that you’re trying to construct a tapering underwater city out of random clumps of building blocks, dangled from the bottom of a miraculously unsinkable surface platform. Each building both costs points and also, earns points based on different scoring criteria, and every time you play a piece, the screen scrolls irreversibly downward.

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